A Day in Kampala

[This post will likely be longer, so I sorted into headings and you can peruse whatever interests you]

Kampala Backpackers

I woke up sometime around 7:30AM today (12:30 AM), making a lightning fast adjustment to the 7 hour time difference. Becky and I got up and puttered around the hostel for a couple hours, debating whether Hudson was going to pick us up today or tomorrow. The hostel is pretty nice. It has a great bar with a friendly set of bartenders/hostel workers/restaurant staff. The backpackers is currently characterized largely by a group of Brits with a handful of Irish (they are crawling all over the place), but it seems that a group of Asian students will be vying for the most popular country soon. In February, when the medical mission for Engeye comes through it will probably see American insurgents. The facilities are all right as far as backpackers go - there is one shower with a working hot and cold faucet. Actually, the shower felt incredible after 2 days without one (and we will now go awhile without a hot shower). Geckos on the ceiling do a good job of complimenting the tub under the leaking sink. The beds all have bednets, but there aren't really many mosquitoes to be seen. We paid roughly $2 USD for wireless for one day, but have not had to renew it for some reason...

Boda Bodas Fast, Safe, and Reliable

Hudson is the Engeye representative that is supposed to meet as at the Backpacker's on Thursday or Friday. The "or" was my fault as I incorrectly replaced the "31^st" with "Friday" in e-mail correspondences. At around 10:30 or 11:00 AM we decided that he was coming tomorrow and ventured into Kampala to register with the US embassy. We walked down the road to catch a taxi and were asked if we would like a ride by two boda boda drivers (a boda boda is a motorcycle). One boda boda driver carefully placed a helmet over his head and the other one set it over the speedometer and tachometer. Becky and I covered our heads in lieu of a helmet. I, embarrassingly, seemed to cling on to my driver, slowly releasing my death grip as I watched Becky break out a book half way through the ride. These boda boda drivers did not have "smooth" in mind. We weaved in and out of traffic, cut people off, while discussing Obama and McCain. Becky never put down her book.

An Attack on the US Embassy?

Upon arriving to the US embassy a kind, private security guard welcomed us into the embassy with his M-16 (or other large, intimidating, automatic weapon). An unarmed security guard took our explosive water bottles and spy cameras as we made our way through security to the waiting room. A "senior guard" shooed away a couple kids from our seats (they had been seating there before us and despite our protests he kicked black kids to the back of the waiting room). After all, we were mzungus (white people). Americans. I don't think it was there, but I imagined scorn on the back of my neck as Becky and I waited for a consulate. As we waited, a Minnesotan man in charge of saving Africans described how thieves distracted his wife on the bus and grabbed her purse through the bus window. [My father lost his passport in Columbia in the '70s and blocked the bus doors until his passport was dropped onto the floor - my aunt thought they might kill him first]. While filling out the registration a siren came over the intercom and calmly asked us to take cover under a desk and avoid windows...never found out what happened with that...but I am here to write about it.

Introduction to Ugandan Cuisine

After registering at the embassy we walked across the street to a restaurant for lunch. We ordered matoke, vegetable stew, and some lemon cola. Matoke is a dish made of steamed plantains; we each received a massive portion of what must have been five plantains. The entire meal was 10,000 shillings ($6.32 USD). They were mostly tasteless and very filling. The stew was amazingly tasty and I noticed how the waiter/bartender/busboy opened the cola in front of us. It was clear that the reuse the bottles in Uganda - the labels are worn and they collect the bottles back for recucling. This practice continued to Ddegeya Village. We were the only ones in the restaurant, serenaded by mid to late '90s American pop love songs. The restaurant must have been able to seat 50 - it might have been more popular as a bar.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

We took the boda bodas back to the backpackers. We discovered this was a very expensive form of transportation. There are also the public busses or taxis, which are mini-vans that seat 19, and private hire taxis (like US taxis) that are only occupied by you. Taxis (buses) were about 1,000 shillings, boda bodas were 5,000 shillings, and private hires were about 10,000 shillings for roughly equal trips. They don't have the same kind of emissions controls in Uganda - fumes would collect in the valleys of Kampala as Becky and I coughed our way through, clinging to the back of the boda boda. In the city, we were surrounded by thousands of people on foot, especially near the market. It was somewhat overwhelming. I think travel by foot or bicycle are the main methods of transportation.

Tourists Navigating Kampala's User Friendly Transportation

In our one day traveling around Kampala we got into an accident and our boda boda driver got lost. A truck turned into our taxi. The conductor (the person who collects the fair) stayed with the car as the driver hopped out (leaving the car in the intersection), borrowed a boda boda and attempted to chase down the truck. The people in the taxi haggled with the conductor and paid half the fair. We walked up the hill, the rest of the way to the backpackers. Boda boda drivers also got lost, borrowed our maps, asked for directions from others, turned back to refuel, and eventually returned us to the backpackers [Taxis, according to Lonely Planet: East Africa often keep their vehicles with little fuel so that if they are stolen the thief cannot go far]. They then claimed not to have change (it was clear that they did have change). This was the second time that day we had been ripped off - we were overcharged for a towel, too. When the cashier at a Kobil station (a Mobil knockoff) returned the wrong change, I questioned him and he simply told me the prices (10,000 shillings higher than marked). Oh well.

Hudson

At the backpackers we met Hudson, an extremely friendly Ugandan who has been an excellent teacher, friend, and guide. Hudson is thin, friendly, patient, and very proficient in English. He helped us get in a public taxi for the first time and guided us through Kampala, again, where we would exchange money and buy stamps. We walked past tiny, tiny children that had been sent out to beg for money. They did not actively ask us for money. Instead, they simply sat at crowded street corners holding their arms up. It looked like a commercial from the Christian Children's Fund. We hurried past the children winding through alleys that Becky and I would have avoided. I didn't see a single white person in Kampala, besides the few at the Kampala Backpackers. I don't know if Becky and I would have been able to figure out the bus system in Kampala without Hudson's help - there are no easy-to-follow signs and pictures like in major cities in Australia and the US (although most signs, ads, and information is in English).

Interesting Introduction to Uganda and Deep Economy

When Hudson dropped us off back at the backpackers he wrote down a few phrases in Luganda (the predominant local language). I had a coke and began Deep Economy by Bill McKibben as Becky read The Fountainhead. I remember thinking that the introduction to my book was especially striking giving my setting. The book begins:

For most of human history, the two birds More and Better roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and hope to hit them both, That's why the centuries since Adam Smith have been devoted to the dogged pursuit of maximum economic production. The idea that individuals, pursuing their own individual interests in a market society, make one another richer and the idea that increasing efficiency, usually increasing scale, is the key to increasing wealth has indisputably produce More. It has built the unprecedented prosperity and ease that distinguish the lives of most people reading this book [I looked around the backpacker's bar at this point and silently agreed]. It is no wonder and no accident that they dominate our politics, our outlook, even our personalities.

But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this: Better has flown a dew trees over to make her nest. That changes everything. Now, if you've got a the stone of your own life, or your own society, gripped in your hand, you have to choose between them. It's more or better.

I headed to bed that night at around 8:30 closing the mosquito net behind me. Tomorrow we go to Ddegeya, Uganda.